Remember that Nancy Pelosi told us that we needed to pass ObamaCare to find out what’s in it. Barack Obama promised to “bend the cost curve,” too. Looks like both of them were right, at least according to the Paper of Record, which discovers to its surprise that dumping nebulous mandates on insurers causes them to bend the cost curve sharply upward (via Instapundit):

Health insurance companies across the country are seeking and winning double-digit increases in premiums for some customers, even though one of the biggest objectives of the Obama administrations health care law was to stem the rapid rise in insurance costs for consumers.

Particularly vulnerable to the high rates are small businesses and people who do not have employer-provided insurance and must buy it on their own.

In California, Aetna is proposing rate increases of as much as 22 percent, Anthem Blue Cross 26 percent and Blue Shield of California 20 percent for some of those policy holders, according to the insurers filings with the state for 2013. These rate requests are all the more striking after a 39 percent rise sought by Anthem Blue Cross in 2010 helped give impetus to the law, known as the Affordable Care Act, which was passed the same year and will not be fully in effect until 2014.

In other states, like Florida and Ohio, insurers have been able to raise rates by at least 20 percent for some policy holders. The rate increases can amount to several hundred dollars a month.

Why should this surprise? The must-issue regulation built into ObamaCare increases costs for the insurers, who cannot draw all of the needed revenues from the high-risk pool, thanks to mandates on rates. That means those costs have to get spread out to everyone in the pool. This is nothing more than Risk Pool 101, a course that Congress flunked repeatedly in the ObamaCare debate.

And why are rates rising higher on individual premiums than employer-based premiums? First off, the economics of aggregation are always going to work out that way; insurers want large groups of customers, and it’s less costly in the long run to find customers that way rather than one at a time. I’d guess that the employer-aggregate pool might generate somewhat lower costs than the general population too (especially after must-issue), but that’s just speculation. What isn’t speculation is that ObamaCare heavily regulates the individual markets in 2014 based on a law that doesn’t have many details in how that is supposed to be accomplished, based on state exchanges that may never exist in more than half of the states. In that kind of environment, can anyone blame the insurers for basing premiums on worst-case scenarios this year?

None of this surprises those who both understand risk pools and the dynamic reaction to regulation. It’s amusing to see everyone else be shocked, shocked that ObamaCare ends up driving costs upward even further.

The law was written by Obama’s cronies in the health care industry, it should come as no surprise that the results will benefit their bottom lines at the expense of those who haven’t bought and paid for a U.S. President and a Congress.

The dupes in all of this are the press who truly believe all of the bold face lies being told by the Administration. They are willing cheerleaders of the Obama agenda, but unlike the health care industry, the banks, eco firms, GM, etc, etc, they will not cash in on the graft and corruption. Dumb asses.

Obamacare promises more customers, i.e., the uninsured, mostly young and healthy. And the government will be subsidizing the costs up to those making 133% above the poverty level. A family of four making over $80K a year will be eligible for some subsidies. Most of the uninsured will be insured thru Medicaid—about 18 million of them.

A bit of background....I lived in Pittsburgh in the late 1970’s as the steel industry was about to shut-down locally.

Much criticism was being heaped locally upon companies like US Steel who were selling their steel making technology to Brazil and Korea.

“Why on earth are you helping potential competitors who could put us out of business?” was the question being asked.

The answer given by USS brass was that these countries were going to get into the steel business sooner or later. So we may as well make a few bucks by selling them the technology while we can.

This health care scenario is not much different in my view. The industry will take millions of new paying customers at gunpoint for as long as they can get them until the whole thing eventually falls apart.

Gosh.....What a surprise.....We increased the number of people covered, we increased the age at which coverage of children must be dropped, we increased the items covered, we did nothing to reduce cost......and the cost went up. Who’d a thunk it.

13
posted on 01/07/2013 8:22:01 AM PST
by norwaypinesavage
(Galileo: In science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of one individual)

Yep, and if you look at the comments at the NY Slimes source article, the vast majority of them blame the insurance companies. They fail to see the fully INtentional consequences of 2,500+ pages of ObamaDoesn’tCare legislation with its tens of thousands of pages of regulations with all kinds of unfunded mandates.

"... even though one of the biggest objectives of the Obama administrations health care law was to stem the rapid rise in insurance costs for consumers."

This is the biggest lie told about the whole thing. Anyone who actually listened to Nancy Pelosi during the process would understand that the actual objective was to get their hands on all that money being handled by the insurance companies; i.e., take Federal control of a major part of the U.S. economy.

Being able to force us to pay for morning after pills and funding abortion was just a cherry on the pie for them.

It was NEVER about health care. It was NEVER about making health care affordable. It was ALWAYS about control and money!

You are correct. We have arrived at the point where our future elections will be like those in Europe (fought over the issue of “who can best maintain and deliver my social benefits?” and precious little else)

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